Geothermal is a hot solution for reducing heating bills

Felicity and Kalvin Hicks will discuss advances in geothermal and hydronic heating technology at Henty.

Using the earth’s constant temperature and simple heating principles, a home’s energy costs for heating, cooling and hot water can be more than halved.

Hicks Hydronics have developed a heating system adopting central heating principles from the Roman times, coupled with sourcing the latest technology in refrigerative heating and cooling to provide some of the most energy efficient heating solutions available.

With the use of geothermal heat pumps to provide heating, hot water and cooling, the systems are so versatile they can be applied to homes, commercial premises, swimming pools or even a horse stable.

There are different installation methods for drawing on the earth’s natural warmth to suit different properties.

The heat can be drawn from submerged slinky loops in a dam, from the earth in a vertical or horizontal closed circuit ground loop or even direct from an open loop in a borehole.

Regardless of the method of installation, the geothermal heat pump units have the ability to produce up to 5KW of heat for every 1KW of power it consumes.

The general mechanics of how each different geothermal heating system works is pipework in the ground or a dam works to exchange heat between the earth and a refrigerative gas.

The temperature of the earth is what causes the refrigerant to change from ambient to thermal temperature and subsequently changes the refrigerant’s form creating a mass of heat energy, which is harnessed for hot water and central hydronic heating.

This heat exchange process can be direct with the refrigerant running through copper pipework in the ground, or it can be indirect with water flowing through poly pipework exchange heat with the earth and then delivered to the refrigerant.

This process is reversed for cooling applications.

Kalvin Hicks, of Hicks Hydronics, Wodonga, will be at the Henty Machinery Field Days at site R86a to discuss in detail the advances in geothermal and hydronic heating technology.